


For When She Wakes

by apanoplyofsong



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5890870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apanoplyofsong/pseuds/apanoplyofsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy is still trying to figure out how he got here, still trying to navigate the time between falling from the stars and being crushed under the weight of them.</p>
<p>There is a type of ease that comes with having Clarke next to him. He’s never known peace, not really; not since Octavia was born and every life he loved was constantly in danger, but this...it’s something like it. It is the pin of a lock slipping into place.</p>
<p>(Canon compliant through 3x02)</p>
            </blockquote>





	For When She Wakes

**Author's Note:**

> This spurred out of a desire to see them parallel the season opener’s jeep scene in Clarke’s homecoming and, well, I’m not expecting that to actually happen, so I wrote it instead. 
> 
> Thanks to [Hannah](http://teamquiche.tumblr.com/) for originally letting me dump this idea on her.  
> Title from Napoleon, technically?

The jeep is quiet as it moves towards Arkadian grounds. The only thing Bellamy can hear under the air vibrating with the crunch of tires and shocks is his own heart beating, his breaths coming in rapid, and an occasional shift next to him.

Raven is following with Miller and Monty in the jeep behind them, Indra is staring stoically out the window from the seat across from him, and Bellamy can feel Clarke perched on the bench seat next to him--all of his attention focused on her, uncomfortable and stiff and uneasy in the moving car.

The headlights beam across the field ahead, catching on flying bits of dirt and pollen and changing them to gold dust swirling guidelessly into the night. Polis fades behind them, its sharp towers swallowed by the dark and its memories softening slightly with the blurred edges. Kane drives silently while Abby navigates, her eyes flicking back habitually in the mirror as if to check that Clarke is still present, still seated beside him, still hasn’t disappeared on her again.

Bellamy knows the feeling.

He's still trying to figure out how he got here, still trying to navigate the time between falling from the stars and being crushed under the weight of them.

There is a type of ease that comes with having Clarke next to him. He’s never known peace, not really; not since Octavia was born and every life he loved was constantly in danger, but this...it’s something like it. It is the pin of a lock slipping into place. The gravity that pressed on his lungs, the hollow that echoed in his soul every time he had to make a change, make a call, help a child--ringing in the back of his mind like a constant reminder that _she wasn’t there_ , that he said _together_ and she still left--flows out with the taste what was and whatever they are becoming.

It’s a little like after the Mountain, settling back into his own skin, learning it all over again. Between Pike and Kane and the meeting of the Grounder leaders, between Clarke not coming back, not being _able_ to come back because because she was trying to save their people again, with trying to keep his own mind under the devastation and weight of it all, he hasn't been able to breathe this easily in a while. It feels strange. Foreign. Somehow unearned.

He’s waiting for the weight to fall, crush them. He knows it will. They don’t get that lucky on this earth.

But he thinks maybe they can scrape their way out.

Because while there’s too much blood on his hands--too many regrets; too much mud and grime and guilt on hers; too much time between them--when her shoulder knocks against his as the jeep hits an uneven patch of ground, there is still something like hope.

Bellamy turns to watch out of the corner of his eye as Clarke sits herself further back in the seat, closes her eyes, and inhales. Her hair is mostly blonde now, still snarled in strips and tangled braids, the only red left in the very tips of a few faded piecemeal strands. It glows under the dim light reflecting back in the space, her skin barely shining, her face dirt-specked and tilted in supplication to the roof. She’s swaying slightly, close enough that he can feel the heat of her body with each movement, a confirmation that she’s here.

Her hand brushes his, a bare scrape of fingers, worn skin against skin. It’s almost accidental, almost an effect of their bodies moving in time with the vehicle under them, but her shoulders shift and her eyes lower, resting on the knife that lays across her lap.

Bellamy reaches out, twines his fingers with hers, blood and dirt and guilt together. He meets her eyes. Everything feels dark and heavy with the night.

“You did good, Clarke.” His thumb moves across hers unconsciously and he can feel her balk, feel her tense, feel her ready to go scratching out the anger he’s laid to rest for this one ride. Instead, Bellamy lets his gaze hold hers, lets his hand ground her here, to this instant, to this truth underlying it all. “You did what you had to do.”

His voice is low, though Indra is actively ignoring them, and it feels strung across the air between them, a live wire in the breeze. The breath she lets out is visible.

She squeezes his hand so that the bones shift slightly, looks at him as fiercely as he’s ever seen.

“So did you.”

It is so certain, so _Clarke_ that it cleaves him like a physical blow; everything he’s been told but hasn’t heard from anyone else.

Her arm presses against his, and her head drops to his shoulder, their bodies supporting each other like always, like memories and beginnings. A single stitch beginning to sew.

There are things they need to talk through, words that won’t be easy or kind to either one of them. There are facts they need to face, tomorrows they need to sort through again and again as they come to tear them down. There are terrors that will scream their names.

And there are things he needs to tell her; things about peace and forgiveness and the hole he carried in his heart, about the times he touched her skin in his sleep. He needs to tell her about the things that keep him running, and how so many of them bear her name.

But Clarke’s hair is smooth under his cheek as Bellamy lets his head rest on hers. Her breaths are even and deep, her muscles going slack, her weight molding itself against him.

There are things they need to do that the world will never make easier for them, but, in this moment, the air is cool where it races past his skin, all pine and camphor and late fall weeds. Everything feels softer, manageable. Whole.

He lets her sleep.

The world can wait until tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing canon and I tip my hat to those of you who do it more regularly because it is hard. Hope you enjoyed!  
> I'm on tumblr with fic-related things [here](http://apanoplyoffic.tumblr.com/) and more generally [here](http://apanoplyofsong.tumblr.com/), almost always being hopeless about these types of things.


End file.
